Culture industry and the aesthetics for the post-modern taste: mixing, jamming and hip-

hop rhetoric

Case Study Subcarpati Band

Lixandru Daniela-Elena
Mosoianu Diana
MCPE 2016
Culture and communication
Introduction

This project began as an evaluation of how new generation perceive the authentic
folklore music and how new ways of reinterpreting it can function as a remediation of an
archive of memories, by also creating awareness on a new music genre.
When talking about 80s media, the folkloric music couldve been found in only 2
major shows back then, Tezaur folcloric and Cntarea Romniei. The youngsters of
today, dont know how a proper popular dance (hor, nvrtit) is properly done or how a
folkloric song is sang, and dont know the real meaning of folkloric thesaurus. The young
generation image of the folkloric music start from different well-done productions of few
etno shows that remained alive in television, traditional weddings or old music artists that
carry on the popular image of Romanian tradition.
Just because the authentic folklore cannot be reproduced in nowadays music, the
reassessment of the traditional has brought change by the years before in new ways. Starting
from mid-90s where the bundle with the past popular music was made through superficial
and primitive bands such as Etno, Ro-mania, Ho-ra, the traditional music was remixed in an
electronic way and was made as a marketing movement.
The combination was a big success especially at the countryside where this adaptation
of the popular music that blasted into the old city centers (the new disco clubs), were helping
in forgetting the 70-80s period where the state was controlling the folklore and tradition.
Florin Iordan remembers in his article about Fuziuni pan-balcanice optzeciste in Dilema
Vechea about how the idea of the National Festival Cantarea Romaniei was launched at
Congresul Educaiei Politice i Culturii Socialiste, in 1976 being a mass action for developing
artistic movement and political, patriotic and revolutionary education of the entire nation. 1
If the first bands were in an incipient way a remediation of what popular music
consisted at that time, a new phenomenon appeared that promotes the folklore: Subcarpati
band. Subcarpati started as an ideological movement, as they declare, by bringing in front the
idea that the national identity is lost. Subcarpati is the band that put the Romanian folklore
into a new light and combined it with heavy sounds like drum and bass, trip hop, dancehall
but mostly hip hop, and sprinkled some electronic rhythm also. Actually, they dont call
themselves a band, they consider themselves a group of good and beautiful that have music

1 http://dilemaveche.ro/sectiune/tema-saptamanii/articol/fuziuni-pan-balcanice-optzeciste
as a principle mission. They claim that in this country you dont need only money to live, but
an open mind, music, folklore and culture.
Their focus with this project wasnt on a commercial purpose but on doing whatever
they are doing best: creating new type of folklore. In the end they want to do a new way of
folklore for free, because the original one was also coming from free. Marius Alexe, aka
Bean, the vocalist from Suie Paparude band, launched this new musical project in 2010 that
declares to be not a political or a social one but a mix of folkloric hip hop that expresses our
essence as a Romanian nation.2
The name Subcarpati, comes from the fact that our country stays at the base of
Carpathian Mountains. Also, that base comes from the instrument that they prefer using in
their mixing.

I. Theoretical section
In order to develop the analysis on the Subcarpati music rhetoric we have chosen a theoretical
framework that covers the following concepts: remix theory from the perspective of Eduardo
Navas, hip-hop sampling (with the deriving concepts of sampling and intertextuality), the
culture industry, national identity, Romanian identity, cultural memory and prosthetic
memory. The music of Subcarpati will be analyzed under these concepts in order to gain a
better understanding on their music aesthetics.

I. 1. Remix theory
Remix is a musical trend that captured the world since the late 60s. It became a global
trend which was approached according to the specificity of each culture. It is a form of culture
that generated several debates regarding its originality or lack of originality. These ideas
stayed at the base of a debate according to which remix is original through its final form
(songs which are built from different song samples) and also that it lacks in originality by
being formed of original pieces of different musical samples.
According to Eduardo Navas: remix culture can be defined as a global activity
consisting of the creative and efficient exchange of information made possible by digital
technologies. Remix is supported by the practice of cut/copy and paste3.

2 The interview with Bean when launching the Subcarpati band http://www.evz.ro/bean-de-la-suie-
paparude-lanseaza-proiectul-subcarpati-914461.html

3 Eduardo Navas, Remix Theory. The aesthetics of sampling, page 65

 Hip-hop music is mostly made of other songs, as Gavin Kistner stated in his book 4.
This is why it is important for us to understand the tools that are used by Subcarpati in this
process.
In order to gain a better understanding on the underground folklore of Subcarpati we
need to have a theoretical basis for the way this music is created.
For our present paper, remix as culture must be defined within the music area. The
study of Eduardo Navas brings out all the depiction of all types of remix sustained by
examples. According to Navas, everyone who owns a computer could become a DJ and can
remix music due to the possibilities that the digital era offers.
Remix works as a tool of producing art in many areas. It started with music and it has
been extended to visual arts and other types of arts.
Navas states that the postmodern music is a remix of modern music and aims at
ensuring its continuity throughout time. This is a perspective that t is sustained by several
other theoreticians in this area as we will see in the following pages.
What is observed to the majority of remixed songs is the repetition. In order to
produce a remixed song, the DJs must use samples from well-known pieces and to toss them
into a mechanism built by repetition.
Musical remix is what Navas calls the reinterpretation of a pre-existing song 5. There
are three types of remix: extended, selected and reflexive. In order to understand in which of
the three categories falls our case study we need to define each of them. Navas describes
extended remix as being a longer version of a song which is enriched with large instrumental
parts. Selected remix is added or subtracted material from the original song and reflexive
remix is what he calls the allegorized song. This is built by adding and subtracting parts to
and from the song so that the original composition becomes barely recognizable by keeping
only a few elements from the original song (like the title, some lyrics and a few musical
parts).

I.1.1 The aesthetic legitimacy of the hip-hop music

4 Gavin Kistner, Hip-Hop Sampling and Twentieth Century African-American Music: An Analysis of
Nas' "Get Down", page 21

5 Eduardo Navas, Remix Theory. The aesthetics of sampling, page 65

 Navas aims at demonstrating that remix is what Attali calls the domestication of
noise. Navas translates Attalis theory to its previously mentioned statement that postmodern
music is what brings continuity to the modern music.
From an opposite point of view, according to Adorno, the remixed music is a
regression mark of the post-modern era. He states that by listening to remixed music, people
are comfortable to listening to something they have already heard and they enjoy. He states
that nowadays masses find displeasure in pleasure6 and that this is rather a form of
regression than of progression.
Hip-hop is a post-modern music genre which falls into the category of the popular arts.
The aesthetic legitimacy of the popular art will be demonstrated by comparison with the
refined art, from a critical perspective according to Schusterman.
The critics position on the lack of creativity of the popular art is as follows: it satisfies
masses, the team work suppresses the originality and the standardization limits the individual
dimension. As a response to all these, Shustermans argument is that both the refined and the
popular art use common conventions in order to be appreciated and understood by people.
The technological means entail creative results as it has been proven throughout history in the
architecture field.
Fundamental ideas and arguments: Shusterman sustains a point of view which is
opposed to the critics according to that popular arts have no aesthetic legitimacy due to their
mass dedicated specificity. Popular art is considered by the critics in the field to have a lack of
aesthetics and it is therefore considered useless or a threat for the refined art by its power to
change peoples attention; it is also considered to be standardized and industrialized, and
therefore it addresses the masses.
Another critical approach of the remix aesthetic is the waning of affect which is
specific for the postmodern era; the concept is described by Navas in his paper, based on
Jameson Fredrics theory. He thinks that this happened due to the high level of media
production. Art and culture therefore suffered a fragmentation.
According to Attali, as Navas states in his paper, music is the domestication of noise,
considering the historical background of the way music was born 7. When making sacrifice
rituals for the gods, people needed something to ease their pain and to give them the sensation
of control over nature. That is the background for what later people called concerts: the

6 Adorno, The Culture Industry, page 33

7 Eduardo Navas, Remix Theory. The aesthetics of sampling, page 89

musician on the scene was in the end applauded for his representation just like sacrifice ritual
participants applauded the process that occurred in front of them.
The tools on which the remix theory is based are sampling and intertextuality.
Sampling is, according to the definition on which Navas based his research, a small part of
anything or one of a number, intended to show the quality, style, or nature of the whole
specimen. From Navass point of view, sampling is a term which applies to many cultural
areas but which is mostly used in music. For example, he refers to photography as being the
sampling of a part of the world 8 in a primarily way. Considering this point of view, we can
state that the first recordings that were made in the nineteenth century are audio samplings of
that period. This is exactly what brings continuity and keeps alive the musical pieces of the
past.

I.2 Intertextuality
Intertextuality (as presented by Gavin Kistner in his paperwork Hip-Hop Sampling
and Twentieth Century African-American Music: An Analysis of Nas' "Get Down"), is in the
first place a literary procedure that is an essential aesthetic of the hip-hop music, which
according to Lacasse means the actual insertion of a text within another. There are a few
intertextual practices Kistner presents in his book and analyzed by Lacasse. One of them is
quotation which falls into two subtypes: autosonic and allosonic 9. The autosonic quotation is
defined as being a sample that is directly imported from a recording to another. The allosonic
quotation is more specific for jazz music.
As Gavin Kistner stated in his book, intertextuality is in direct relationship with
decoding because "what has previously been said is of course intertextuality, i.e., the meaning
acquired through sampling; how they will be received by others is decoding. This is an
important aspect in conducting our analysis for Subcarpati music.

I.3 National identity

According to DeCillia Wodak Reisigl, national identity is built on history which leads
us to the conclusion that we have to analyze remembrance and memory. History is formed by

8 Eduardo Navas, Remix Theory. The aesthetics of sampling, page 12

9 Gavin Kistner, Hip-Hop Sampling and Twentieth Century African-American Music: An Analysis of
Nas' "Get Down", page 21
collective memories and facts that built the nation. The nowadays lifestyle relies on myths,
symbols and rituals of everyday life which have been perpetuated by our ancestors. This is
what forms the collective memory, according to De Cillia10.
According to Constantin Schifernet in his paperwork about Romanian identity, in
accordance to Manuel Castells, the identity as defined by social groups is the one that shapes
the structure of the society. In the same authors vision, one of the most powerful identities at
an individual level and at a community level is the national identity. The members of a nation
share a series of similarities, interests, beliefs and norms. According to Anthony D. Smith, as
cited in Schifernets book, nationalism must be associated with national identity. The elements
that form the national identity are the symbolism, the language and the feelings the
individuals share. The expression of national identity is the sum up of attitudes, ways of
thinking and behaviors11.
In accordance with Schifernets vision, the lack of studies on the Romanian identity
makes a hard process to properly define it but there are certain aspects that are specific to it.
Most of the theoreticians in this area reduced the definition of Romanian identity to the
concept of Romanian soul or spirit. However, Romanian identity could be defined while
taking into consideration the following factors: religiously, orthodoxy maintains the
Romanian spirituality, the language works as an ethnical binder, the rich culture of
Romanians, economy and psychology (the general features of the Romanian psychic).

Schifernet also states that, the most defining aspect of the Romanian identity is the
psychological profile in his vision, Romanian people are governed by gregarism which
means the herd effect12. Romanians have been driven throughout history by this feeling of
affiliation to their community and they only acted through it. This is, in the authors opinion,
exactly what managed to keep the Romanian culture intangible; without it, the national
identity would have been lost considering the historical contexts that Romanian people lived
in. Even if this culture was a weak one in comparison with the European cultures, it managed
to keep its specificity throughout time.

10 De Cillia Wodak Reisigl, Discoursive Construction National Identity, page 155

11 Constantin Schifernet, Identitatea romneasc n contextul modernitii tendeniale, page 4

12 Constantin Schifernet, Identitatea romneasc n contextul modernitii tendeniale, page 12

 Another point of view on the Romanian identity and cited by Schifernet in his book is
the one of Mihai Ralea who stated that the Romanian identity lacks in substance and it has no
originality because of the oriental influences that crossed the Romanian land. He thinks in
other words that the Romanian people are shallow and easily to influence as they adapted to
all political and historical contexts. The author states that it is a long way for them to become
a spiritually fulfilled nation.
The same author emphasized the idea that Romanian identity is defined by the national
character and it relies in the general behaviors, in concepts and in the actions of the
individuals. The collection of flaws and qualities of the Romanian nation is like in any other
nations case what defines the Romanian identity.
From a political and geopolitical perspective, Schifernet sustains the idea that the
powerful Romanian identity was the factor that ensured the autonomy of the state. If Romania
would have become a soviet republic, the process of becoming a European state would have
been impossible. So it is once again emphasized the striking character of the concept of
national identity.

I.4 Romanian Music

Music holds a great importance in building the identity of a nation. This is what
Marian Zaloaga argues in his paperwork, Despre muzica si identitatea romanilor. He chose
to approach a German point of view. The reason of his choice was made while considering the
proximity of Germany towards Romania and the need of Germans to show their superiority in
the cultural context through a vast literature about musical history and analysis 13. The
construction of this literature started by assuming that the music a nation produces will BE
representative for the medieval and antique origin of that nation. This concept was also was
pointed out by Ioan-Aurel Pop, by sustaining that the ethnic identity of a nation is, in the
Middle Age, characterized by solidarity the links between the members of a nation in
different life instances14. Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu is another theoretician that positions the
beginning of the Romanian nationalism before modernism (in the fourteenth century)15.

13 Marian Zaloaga, Despre muzica si identitatea romanilor, page 172

14 Mona Mamulea, Dialectica inchiderii si deschiderii in cultura romana moderna, page 47

15 Mona Mamulea, Dialectica inchiderii si deschiderii in cultura romana moderna, page 52

 From a historical point of view, the German literature about music emphasized the
connection between Romanian music and the roman origins of people living in Ardeal. This
was emphasized in a German publication in 1814 and sustained with analytical arguments
such as phonetical similarities and the music Wallachian people listen to which is a music
specific for dance and it holds many of the characteristics of Roman music. The period in
which these studies have been developed was characterized mainly by the affirmation of
national identity in the Carpathian space. The historical context was a tumultuous one and the
cultural area has borrowed this specificity. The influences came from both the North of the
Danube and from the South. What Zaloaga concludes is that the national identity of the
Romanians is based on the Roman influences considering the music, the dance and the
musicality and phonetics of the language.
Another approach of the national identity is the one of Mona Mamulea, described in
her book Dialectica inchiderii si deschiderii in cultura romana moderna. She states that
between the urban and the rural culture there are no evident differences, as the urban culture is
built on the rural one. People who live in the urban area have mostly the same traditions and
customs like their neighbors in the countryside. For example, the religious services are the
same and they celebrate weddings and baptisms the same way. Based on this we can conclude
that in the urban area there are living proofs of the ethnicity of a nation.
Smith defines the concept of nationalism, according to Gellner, as being the
awakening of nations to self-consciousness; it invents nations where they do not exist but it
does need some pre-existing differentiating marks to work on, even if, as indicated, they are
purely negative16. Individuals know some of the members of the community they live in;
they do not know all other members of the nation they belong to. It is nationalism that bounds
them and make them feel they belong to a large group of individuals with the same culture,
who speak the same language and have the same traditions and other common aspects.
According to Smith, nationalism is a form of culture and identity in the first place and
holds a series of meanings. What is relevant for our present paperwork is the fact that
nationalism is represented through the language and the symbols of a nation; a further
meaning of nationalism with relevance for our case study is that nationalism represents also
a consciousness of belonging to the nation together with sentiments and aspirations for its

16 Anthony D. Smith, National Identity, page 71

security and prosperity17. We will analyze the lyrics in Subcarpati music in order to
demonstrate the stated above characteristics of nationalism.
There are several aspects of a nation that form the concept of nationalism. According
to Smith, some of these are: folk costumes, museums of folklore, war memorials, the
countryside, popular heroes and heroines, fairy tales, all those distinctive customs, mores,
styles and ways of acting and feeling that are shared by the members of a community of
historical culture. Most of these elements are evoked in the Subcarpati music which we will
show that it is by itself an expression of the Romanian nationalism. The motifs, lyrics and
musical style which appear in the Subcarpati collection are a form of expressing the national
belonging of the Romanians. By using remix as a form of musical production, Subcarpati
music reinforces the nationalism among their target group. Their music also evokes customs
and traditions by remixing the folkloric music from the Romanian culture and these are the
elements that it was proven by theoreticians they last in time.
The Romanian music according to Carmen Stoianov and Petru Stoianov in their book
Istoria muzicii romanesti has a series of characteristics that along with the influences from
other neighboring or sovereign nations gained a unique style. By analyzing the Romanian
music, the authors emphasized the following elements that brought uniqueness to the folklore:
the autochthonous acoustic fund, the structure of the Romanian language, the psychological
factor (which is reflected by the feelings that are evoked in the songs gravity, meditation,
sobriety, joy, sadness, misery etc.), the Romanian lifestyle (customs, social organization) etc.
An important aspect of the Romanian music is that it has a continuous variation which
ensured its stay into the collective memory, according to Constantin Brailoiu 18. The success of
Subcarpati band is the living proof of this statement and by using remixes as a form of
producing their music the band succeeded in reinforcing the feeling of national belonging of
their listeners.
Romanian folkloric music has a powerful patriotic message, according to Stoianov.
The lyrics and the musical notes are the factors that further transmit the Latinity of the
Romanian nation which gains the unique character by its special kind of songs, according to
Henri Ehrlich: doina (a type of lullaby which specifically sings about missing someone or
something), hora (which is a specific kind of song created especially for a kind of dance),
balada (ballad) and romanta (the romance).

17 Anthony D. Smith, National Identity, page 72

18 Carmen Stoianov and Petru Stoianov, Istoria muzicii romanesti, page 15

I.5 Mediation and remediation
According to Errl&Rigney media provides the framework for the cultural memory to
be perpetuated through time. Cultural memory can only be shared by a nation through a
cohesive tool. Mass media is the one that holds this function nowadays. The individuals are
permanently changing their relationship with the past according through a process of
remembrance and forgetting which is characterized by dynamism.
As Errl and Rigney state in their book, cultural memory is made of controversies and
crises and in developing the studies, there must be taken into account the mediation channels
that produce it. We can conclude that media is the one that dictates the building of cultural
memory, and what this is actually made of. The mediation process refers to the way media
exposes the memories of a nation. By using transparency as a principle, it shows the facts
from the past that influence our society nowadays.
According to Errl and Rigney, the remediation concept has been introduced by David
Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin in order to describe how new media forms refashion the prior
media forms19. In our opinion, it is important for individuals to understand how media forms
worked at a certain time and they can only get an image of this by using the current media that
are at hand.
The scope of media nowadays is to offer individuals a clear image on the past or, as
Errl and Rigney stated in their book, to offer an unmediated image of it. In Bolter and
Grusins vision, cultural memory is built by using the principle of repurposing which means
using a memory that has been built in a medium to be constructed in another medium.

I.6 Prosthetic memory

Prosthetic memory is a new kind of memory and it refers to the process of
remembering things that one did not live. An analysis of this has been developed by Alison
Landberg in her book, Prosthetic memory. As well as in the case of cultural memory and
other types of memory, the existence of prosthetic memory is made possible by mass media.
This concept holds importance for our paperwork as it is important to analyze how Subcarpati
music evokes facts from the past and exposes them as memories that were not lived by the
present generation. In creating the prosthetic memories, Landberg states that there must be an
identity link between the one that has them and the ones that actually lived them.
19 Astrid Erll and Ann Rigney, Mediation, Remediation, and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory, page
3
 While making a parallel between what Landberg exposed in her book as an example of
prosthetic memory process we can see some similarities between the ways African slaves in
America expressed their consciousness and the ways Subcarpati music evokes the shared
memories. African slaves sang about the injustices they lived because of white people and the
Romanian music emphasizes the injustices that happened on different layers: socially,
politically or spiritually, filtering this through the sieve of the Romanian identity, which
Schifernet stated to be represented by the Romanian spirit.

II. Analysis

Research Questions
The first question that will shape our research its how sampling and intertextuality in
Subcarpatis music can reinforce the Romanian National Identity?
Starting from Beans declaration in many interviews that they want to awaken the
Romanian Nation through their music sounds and to send the Romanian appurtenance feeling
through their lyrics message, we will investigate how the Romanian identity was built in the
past through the Romanian music.
The more in depth study that helped us in our research is the paper written by Marian
Zaloaga that gave us more insights on the music and identity of Romanians, also a better and
complete view when talking about origins of folklore. This way it was easy for us to see how
the musical canon was formed and advanced the nationalism.
By studying this, we will try to spot some related aspects also in our case study by
studying more in depth the lyrics and spot intertextualities that combined with folklore
sampling can an effected on reinforce the messages of national identity give for the new
generation.
Starting from understanding how nationalism is as a movement for maintaining the
unity and identity of a nation, and how Smith (1991) show concepts and symbols that attain
this, we will try also to find in our studied lyrics, symbols that can function as messages for
awakening the national feeling in the listeners of Subcarpati music.
 The second research question that we want to investigate by getting further into this
research is how folkloric and hip hop remix can work as remediation for Romanian culture
memory?
We will start by analyzing the remixes used by Subcarpati band, and connect them
with moments that somehow recall the past in the ear of their listeners. Studying the hip hop
lyrics from their songs by spotting different patterns and connect it with what type of samples
they are using to produce their own kind of sound we will try to identify how they create a
process of remembrance of the Romanian past.
Thus, we will try to demonstrate that their music that its promoted with the means of
the new media, through hip hop discourses and remixing folkloric samples, work as symbols,
moreover, an instrument of remediation on the Romanian cultural memory, by reshaping the
past into an authentic way to be on the taste of the new generation.
To get more familiar with understanding the process of remix, we will use Eduard
Navas studies on the remix and we will try to familiarize with the process of sampling and
spot the needed connection that reveals features that will help us in this research. The new
form of cultural memory that will try to spot by analyzing the above, it will be sustained by
what we studied from Landsberg and his book of Prosthetic Memory.
How this engagement with the past reveals in the Subcarpatis music and work as a
reshaping method of the past, we will demonstrating by better understanding the concept of
remediation that weve seized from De Astrid Erill and Ann Rigney in the Mediation,
Remediation and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory book.

III. The methodological approach

We kind of chose the subject of this research in a more emotionally and intuitively
way due to our love of music and because we are fans of Subcarpati music. Even so, we will
be objective in our research and this will compensate the intuitive side of the project.
According to Flyvbjerg (2004) and all the mentioned above, our case study is
classified as a paradigmatic one: Like other good craftsmen, all that researchers can do is use
their experience and intuition to assess whether they believe a given case is interesting in a
paradigmatic context, whether they can provide collectively acceptable reasons for the choice
of case.
 Our research will be conducted in a descriptive approach by tackling theories through
the literature review to have a better understanding of the used concepts in order to handle the
analysis in a more accurate manner.
The subject that we choose is Subcarpati music in terms of remix and we choose this
subject for our research because not only is an interesting and unusual genre of music but it
helps us provide examples though we can demonstrate that remix in music can be used not
only for a listening purpose but it can reach another level.
This subject is very relevant to point our key case, because the information on remix
can help us understand how we will connect with the object of the study. This leads us in an in
depth analysis in order to interpret how our findings can place our key case in demonstrating
that remix of hip hop and folklore can work as a modern form of memory and also a reminder
of the national identity.
The purpose of this case study is to explore the theory of remix and how this duality in
music and the appropriation of music reproduction tools can recreate the Romanian folkloric
sound in order to place the listeners into a mood of remembering of how was the Romanian
sound before and how it is reshaped now for seizing the new generation.
Adding intertextuality, by including elements of previous Romanian texts or Romanian
symbols within the lyrics we want to analyze, we will see in the further analysis that the
samples used by Subcarpati are not only made by sounds, but also by words and expressions.
These, will help us in the operational process to interpret how all these combined will
remember to Romanian culture that they are Romanians.
The case is single and the problem that can occur in conducting this research is that
our analytical power of identifying key elements to identify proper findings can be weak
because of our lack of experience.
Also, when talking about studying the lyrics and interpret texts to help in interpreting
what we need to find out in order to demonstrate our research question, can be problematic
because our knowledge on semantics is not that well-constructed. Thus, our process os
analysis on the text will be more descriptive and illustrative than theoretical and we might not
be so accurate on the connotative meaning.
To answer our research question concerned with the reinforcing the Romanian national
identity through Subcarpati music, we will analyze a bit how the inspection of the folklore
lead to Romanian national essence. The information about the history of Romanian music in
the folklore context will help us understand how Subcarpati used samples that resemble the
music from the Romanian history and how in combination with hip hop rhetorics and
powerful messages can activate the national identity in the ears of the listeners.
The elements of ethno genesis Romanian folkloric music20 are:
- Autochthonous sound fond defined on layers that are staying under historical factors
- The structure of Romanian language especially when talking about the metric system,
the irregularity of the accents, and the bipolarity on the metric types
- The psychological factor that reflects our nations way of being: the sobriety way of
singing while also showing robustness of the nation, the meditation way of singing or
in many cases of nostalgia and longing for something.
Back in the history, the writers where the ones that were imposing the trends of the
taste in the popular creation. Grouped with the ones of Dacia Literara, they were militating for
music themes with preponderant patriotic subjects. What is really important is that back then,
the Romanian songs were serving as standard-bearer having the capacity to transmit through
21
them an esthetic message and national one. Romanian used music arguments back then to
evidence the authenticity of a culture not that well known in vest and central European
continent.
Some of the classifications of the types of folkloric music from back then, we founded
by studying Istoria Muzicii Romanesti by Carmen and Petru Stoianov. Some of the found
and well know genres for folkloric music are: doina, balada, cantecul de lume, and
cantecul de joc.
From this classification, we can spot these genres in the Subcarpati remixes also.
Taking doina for example, where the musician is expressing sentiments of sadness, revolt
for the ones that did bad for our country such as oppressors. This type of song also expresses
in a profound way a variety of sentiments of ideas and aspirations.
We can see patterns in the lyrics of Subcarpati that express feelings as the ones seen in
features of doina: Ma simt atat de singur/O mie de oameni in jurul meu/Ma simt atat de
singur.
Texts are juxtaposed in many ways and there are many number of intertexts that
retrieve features from folkloric Romanian genres. The repetititon Imi vine sa plec, imi vine
sa plang/Imi vine sa plec de unde-am venit/ Ma-ntorc la origini ma-ntorc in natura/ E de

20 Cosma, Octavian Lazr, Hronicul Muzicii Romneti, vol. I, Editura Muzical, Bucureti, 1973, p.
48.

21 Eftimie Murgu, n lucrarea Combaterea disertaiei aprute sub titlul Dovad c romnii nu sunt
de origine roman i c acest lucru nu reiese din limba lor italo-slav
respectat, e mai cinstit shows the connection with the land and with the origins. All these
lyrics can be heard from their music by also having samples of flutes, oboe sounds and other
Romanian sound instruments.
But what is more relevant for our research is the combination of words that result full
of intertextuality messages that can be taken as powerful discourses.
The combination of intertexts and patterns that we observed by studying the lyrics are
the following:
- Using elements from Romanian old poetry Iene, Caloiene!Tinerel te-am ngropat or
old folkloric songs: Frunzulita iarba deasa, frunzulita iarba deasa/Mandra-i lumea si
frumoasa, mandra-i lumea si frumoasa,
- Messages that were present in old Romanian music, combined with texts and allusions
from the present:
Rege pe deal, seara pe bloc
Buciumul suna cu jale ca sa-ma-ntorc
Rege pe deal, sclav in oras
Buciumul suna cu jale ca din ambalaj
Uita-te la matematica, la geometria
De pe camasa taranului, ie
Si maine o sa fie odata toate in publicitate
Din pacate pe repede ca se stie
- Messages that have the role of a discourse and transmits powerful impulses addressing
the Romanian listeners:
Si m adresez tinerilor n special
e criz de identitate, fenomen naional
din spate se aude aceeai plac zgriat
vreau s fac bine pentru lumea asta toat
i n-am nevoie de-de-de-de-de-de dovad
atunci cnd cnt doin sau cnd ascult balad
tiu c e scnteia din gunoi
ce va aprinde credina, c Romnia pleac de la noi
i nu vreau s-i devin contiin, taic
vreau doar s nvei din greeli, dar stai c
Lumea o s m-neleag greit
uite ce figuri de romnache obosit
Am spirit naional, dar nu sunt fanatic
Folcloru'-i oxigen pentru un popor astmatic.22
Constantin Schifirnet states that One of the most powerful identities, at an individual
level but also at a collective one, is the national identity. The context of national identity is
fundamental in understanting the dynamics of the nationalism. For Anthony D. Smith, the
nationalism as an ideology a movement, have to be associated with the national identity that is
composed from language, sentiments and a specific symbolistic. Many say that the limitation
of the national identity stays in tradition, but the truth is that modernity, or the modern change
in the national frames is intrinsic for our nation.
Mihai Ralea talks about a new vision about the national identity and he suggests that
Romanian identity stays in our wuality of adaptability and the Romanian phenomenon doesnt
stay in the past, but in our power of waiting for the future. Our identity as a nation is not well-
rounded, is on the way of constructing within a bergsonian formula.
Subcarpati is somehow, formulating a discourse through sampling old folkloric music
and are using intertextuality as a form of remix in order to reinforce values of our nation, thus
reminding the people how to awake the national identity. It is clear that Romanian identity
represents a sum of the qualities and real/or not flaws of the Romanians. Three qualities that
are auto claimed by Romanians are the hardworking behavior, the human kindness and
ospitality, all of these also being reminded in Subcarpati music: Eu folosesc muzica precum
un scut/ctigat n ani grei, nu peste sear la barbut , Caramida peste caramida construim o
baza/Romanii si-au reinviat folclorul/ Fr generalizare, nu vreau rzbunare.
Constanting Schifirnet also states that Romanian identity is affirmed through
collective consciousness of the Romanian people. Every nation disposes of representations
and collective memories in order to distinguish itself from other national groups. Other
relevant for the national identity are the historic memory and the collective one. The national
character is somehow related to the features that resulted from the conservation action of the
own identity in the context of permanent change of history.
This, leads us to our next research question that we want to demonstrate by studying
how remix in our case can function as a tool of remediation upon the Romanian culture
memory.

22 http://www.versuri.ro/versuri/gfiike_subcarpati-argatu-rege-pe-deal.html
 After an initial focus on monuments and artifacts as sources of static knowledge about
the past (Assmann, 1992; Nora, 1984), the field of cultural memory studies has shifted
emphasis toward analysis of how contingent memory potentials are mediated and negotiated
in and through a variety of cultural expressions (Erll, 2011; Erll & Rigney, 2009; Landsberg,
2005). In connection to this turn toward a fluid understanding of cultural memory inspired by,
for instance, White's (1980) approach to narrative and discourse as constitutive elements of
history, questions of how particular representationsfictitious and otherwiseinvite certain
understandings of the past.
The official memory tries a re-representation and a reinterpretation of anterior
thematics, by giving a reshaped signification in harmony with the necessities of the present.
Some themes of the social memory can dissaperar if they dont have correspondences in the
collective thinking because their relevance for the present can represent nothing. In other
words, no one will remember an historical event if: a) Its not imposed by an official
commemoration, b) Its not a justification for a political context in the present or c) it doesnt
sustain the claiming of an identity.
Memory studies is a broad convergence field, with contributions from cultural history,
social psychology, media archaeology, political philosophy, and comparative literature. With
the term cultural memory scholars describe all those processes of a biological, medial, or
social nature which relate past and present (and future) in sociocultural contexts. Cultural
memory entails remembering and forgetting. It has an individual and a collective side, which
are, however, closely interrelated. (Astrid Erll 2011).
In Remediation: Understanding new media, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin
(1999) define remediation as the formal logic by which new media refashion prior media
forms. They understand new media a Refashion by the older mediums. Their texts use
remdiation concept to refer only to technology, but remediation can be seen as an action of
collective memory.
Yuri M. Lotman defines cultures in Universe of Mind as structured, collective
memory systems with dynamic, generative principles for new meanings produced from the
whole system of symbolic resources in a culture.
Moving forward to understanding the concept of remix we can redescribe remix,
appropriation, and hybrid works as genre implementations of the underlying generative,
dialogic, recursive principles in the symbolic systems of a culture independent of any
instantiation in a specific tangible medium. Remix as a form of ongoing dialogism, not
bundles only of repetitions, copies ot technically generated clones, but value-add
interpretative nodes(a time and meaning increment)) formed by necessary generative,
combinatorial processes in the dialogic continuum of culture.23 This can generate processes
that encode future projecting collective memory in order to reuse some cultural expressions.
Analyzig the song Cand a fost la 89 from Subcarpati, we can spot parameters in the
text that are culturally and historically located in the minds of the listeners. The well-known
revolution from 1989 is reminded in this song, after more than 20 years from its happening.
This heavy subject that was a representative moment within the Romanian History and was
never marked through traditional Romanian music, especially in this kind of original
approach.
Pelinel cu strop de rou,
Cnd a fost la '89,
Nu au mai putut rbda,
Haiducii au umplut strada,
C nu vor securitate
i raia din gostate.
i-a fost neic-n '89,
i au mai fost nc vreo dou.
i deodat ce-auzea...
Biciul parc ropotea,
Kalasnikovu' intea,
T. V-ul televiza.
Voinicii se iau la trnt
n televiziune, cnt
Cucuveaua dorului 24
The events are related for the listeners by combining ento influences of the oltenian
music of Liviu Vasilica, a well know folkloric singer from Teleorman, all these combines with
a veritable hip hop discourse. The song is attracting the public through three distinct
features25:

23 Prepublication version of a chapter in to appear in The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies,

ed. Eduardo Navas, et al. (New York: Routledge, 2014)

24 http://www.versuri.ro/versuri/gffgfl_subcarpati-cand-a-fost-la-89.html

25 http://music-blog.ro/2010/07/subcarpati-cand-a-fost-la-89-web/
 1 Autohton sound with scratches composed by violin, ocarina and the popular Romanian
instrument, nai.
2 Beats and samples of old school hip hop, with simple loops of drum and base.
3 Event related lyrics spelled with a lent flow that offer the sensation of hearing a doina
or a ballade.
The solist, Bean, declared in an interview that is good to know your past and to try
learning from its mistakes.26 David Werheims27 was concerned about the ways in which the
same story is recalled in new media, says that remediation is like a moral obligation.
Somehow if we look close on the reason of why this new remixed hip hop-folklorico-music is
done and connect it with our concept, we can say that remediation is used like a tool for
commemorative reasons and culture memory.
In this case, invocating a historical event within a hip hop remix music along with
some folkloric sounds can shape both memory and experience for the new generation.
Maurice Halbwachs(1950) in his paper The Collective Memory said that the very concept
of cultural memory is itself premised on the idea that memory can only become collective as a
part of a continuous process whereby memories are shared with the help of symbolic artefacts
that mediate between individuals and creates communality across both space and time
Thus, Subcarpati music, by using their original way of remixing folkloric beats on a
hip sop flow, can work as a remediation tool for Romanian cultural memory.

Conclusions

The analysis we developed in the present paper lead us to a series of conclusions

regarding the aesthetics of the hip-hop music created by Subcarpati band. Being described in a
theoretical framework that approaches the concepts which build it gave us a broader
understanding on its goals and structure.
The ideological movement that has been started by this band and their goals are
translated into theoretical concepts we described in the theoretical part of this paperwork.
Their music subscribes to the national and Romanian identities which are built through the
perspective of the cultural and prospective memory.

26 http://www.wetpaper.ro/2011/01/interviu-cu-mc-bean/

27 Remediation as a Moral Obligation: Authenticity, Memory and Morality in Anne Franks

Representation in Media, in Astrid Earl and Ann Rigney, eds., Mediation, Remediation, and the
Dynamics of Cultural Memory (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 2009) 157-173
 In the analytical part we developed a descriptive study on Subcarpati music taking by
example fragments from two of their songs (Rege pe deal and Cand a fost la 89) in order
to gain relevant answers to our research questions.
By using sampling and intertextuality in their music to create a remixed folklore,
Subcarpatis goal is to reinforce the national Romanian identity. They managed to win the
attention of the public while revealing common nationalist feelings and while activating the
cultural and prosthetic memory. Their lyrics evoke explicitly the appurtenance feeling to the
Romanian identity.
By answering the second research question, we came to the conclusion that Subcarpati
hip-hop music works as a remediation tool for the Romanian cultural memory. Their music is
built by using the same literary patterns that are used in the Romanian folklore and the
messages they transmit make an appeal to the Romanian collective memory. Their music
reflects the general psychological characteristics of the Romanians: sobriety in the way of
singing and their robustness, the meditation way of singing or in many cases of nostalgia and
longing for something. Subcarpati project works as a remediation instrument as they try to
ensure the long life of the Romanian folklore by addressing the present young generation.
While using hip-hop as the basic music genre in their music their success was guaranteed
from the beginning as hip-hop is one of the most successful music genres.
The uniqueness of the Romanian folklore relies in the specific types of songs that
could only be understood within the Romanian culture. This is aspect Subcarpati tried to
emphasize through the rhetoric of their music. They used repetitions, messages that have the
role of a discourse and transmits powerful impulses; using elements from Romanian old
poetry or old folkloric songs.

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